A short conversational transcript from a Mike Andes YouTube episode where a small-business owner recounts an employee who totaled a truck (texting while driving) and repeatedly damaged equipment due to anger. The owner struggled to fire the employee because of personal sympathy and optimism; his wife had warned against hiring the person. Discussion covers hesitation to use an employment handbook, balancing kindness vs. business needs, and practical advice (e.g., create a bench/backup hire to enable decisive firing).
Chapters
I had someone total a truck last year, so I should have been mad at him for it, but I wasn't. He was texting and driving. They were coming up to a red light, wasn't paying attention, didn't slow down soon enough and just rear ended someone. There were other instances of him breaking my equipment over an anger problem. These are things, like red flags I should have fired him for sooner, but I didn't. Everyone's like, you need to fire him right now. I just have a hard time kind of mixing, like, personal.
Is everyone your wife? Okay, so we need to listen to your wife on all HR related shit.
She was like, as soon as I hired him, she's like, I need to be involved in every interview. She was, wasn't in this one.
Good.
She was telling me from the get go, like, I don't like this guy. He shouldn't be here.
I think there's a difference between being kind and genuine and being a charity. I mean, I love that about him, but I have to remind him, like, we're in a business.
You're just optimistic. You want everyone to be like, I.
Want this kid to do better. I saw myself in him when I was like 18 years old. And that was a bad mistake.
So, yeah.
I think that employment handbook is going to help. But because I can be a pushover, I am afraid I'm going to be afraid to reference that.
Right.
Just because I don't want to cause contention.
One thing I would consider is having her being tasked with creating a bench, which means there's a backup person, they're a good applicant, and you're ready to hire them. Because if you have that person, you'll have more confidence to go pull the trigger on someone when you know they need to instead of, well, we kind of need them. We're in the middle of spring rush.
